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One of the toughest things the artistic director of a ballet company has to do is tell a dancer it’s time to go.

It’s never pleasant. Tears are not uncommon. So imagine Karen Kain’s reaction when four members of the National Ballet of Canada, all men and with plenty of dancing left in them, told her they’ve decided to retire at the end of the current season.

“I was completely surprised,” says Kain, “but I have tremendous admiration for the thoughtfulness and maturity that helped them arrive at such a difficult decision.”

Among the retirees are two of its most popular first soloists, Patrick Lavoie and Keiichi Hirano. Also leaving are second soloist Christopher Stalzer and the corps de ballet’s longest serving man, James Leja.

Although the opportunities are limited, it’s not uncommon for retiring dancers to seek non-performing roles within the profession. What’s notable about the four departing men, two of them fathers with young mouths to feed, is that they’re all making a clean break and heading to university to prepare for lives beyond the ballet world.

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Leja, 31, joined the National Ballet as an apprentice 13 years ago and will study computer science at the University of Toronto. After eight seasons with the company, Stalzer, also 31, will pursue a degree in economics at the same institution.

There’s a good chance the two will bump into Lavoie, 37, because he’s registered in U of T’s life science program.

Hirano, 34, is relocating to his wife’s home province to study electrical engineering at Calgary’s Southern Alberta Institute of Technology.

“In the early days of the company this kind of thing didn’t happen,” says Kain. “You danced until you couldn’t do it anymore.”

Kain says the consequences of such a culture of denial were sometimes tragic. Professional dancers become addicted to the stage. Without planning for the inevitable, dancers expose themselves to a host of practical and emotional problems.

Thirty years ago, this unhealthy head-in-the-sand attitude spurred ballerina Joysanne Sidimus to launch Canada’s Dancer Transition Resource Centre. Its stated mission is to help dancers “make necessary transitions into, within and from professional performing careers.” Kain served for a decade as the board chair, despite being in the midst of her own very busy stage career.

The organization has been highly effective in educating dancers from an early age to plan for the future. In return for a modest annual fee, which may be matched by the company they dance for, the centre offers counselling and retraining assistance.

It’s now not uncommon for dancers, who because of their early start in the profession usually only have high school diplomas, to take post-secondary courses in their spare time in anticipation of career retraining.

For example, Hirano and Lavoie, who have busy performing schedules during the National Ballet’s imminent spring season — a triple bill of works by company member Guillaume Côté and Russian-born Alexei Ratmansky, followed by a run of The Sleeping Beauty — have earned academic credits along the way.

This does not mean saying farewell to ballet is any easier.

Says Montreal-born Leja: “Although it’s bittersweet, I’ve always wanted to go to back to school and knew that this was the right moment. I leave knowing that I’ve had a fulfilling 12-year career with the National Ballet, and I’m looking forward to the future and starting something new.”

Stalzer, from Atlanta, Ga., says the National Ballet has become like “second family” and so the decision to leave was difficult. “But I’ve grown so much as a dancer in the last eight years and get to leave with some really great memories.”

“I’ve been in ballet since I was 8,” says Lavoie, also from Montreal. “I’ve grown up with the smell of the theatre. I love performing, but now I’m ready to explore a different passion.”

At least Lavoie will still have a direct line to company gossip. His wife is corps member Andreea Olteanu.

Hirano, who has three children with former National Ballet dancer Tamara Jones, started even earlier, at age 4, in his mother’s school in Osaka, Japan. His younger brother Ryoichi is a first soloist in Britain’s Royal Ballet. Now Keiichi and his family will live on his wife’s family farm in High River, Alta.

“It’s been a long process,” says Hirano, adored by audiences during his 16 years with the company for his immaculate technique and warm stage presence. “I’m going to miss performing, but being a father has changed my priorities. And I certainly didn’t want someone else making the decision for me.”

Every cloud, optimists say, has a silver lining. Kain is in the enviable position of having plenty of eager young male talent chomping at the bit.

With budgetary restraints limiting the number of dancers Kain can accommodate within the higher-paid ranks of first and second soloist, merit alone is not necessarily enough to earn promotion. Now, with this quartet of departures, Kain can satisfy at least some of those aspirations.

You can imagine the intense speculation surrounding who will get the nod when promotions are announced in June. Meanwhile, the company’s younger women could be forgiven for wishing a similar exodus might open opportunities for them, too.

The National Ballet’s mixed program, Ratmansky & Côté, is at the Four Seasons Centre, 145 Queen St. W., May 30 to June 6; national.ballet.ca, 416-345-9595 or 1-866-345-9595.

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